The background description includes information that may be useful in understanding the present disclosure. It is not an admission that any of the information provided herein is prior art or relevant to the disclosure, or that any publication specifically or implicitly referenced is prior art.
Electronic medical record (EMR) ecosystems are heavily burdened by jurisdictional regulations, complicated standards, or proprietary formats all of which represent good intentions that has been implemented for the sake of the patient or other consumer. Unfortunately these efforts have created a complicated, tangled web of EMR data beyond the ability of non-technical consumers to manage. For example, a patient's EMRs could be located across myriad servers, stored in different formats, or are just inaccessible to the patient because that patient lacks authorization to access the patient's own data on a server owned by others (e.g., personal physicians, pharmacies, hospitals, insurance companies, etc.). Thus, a patient is unable to collect the patient's own data or share the patient's own information with other healthcare stakeholders.
A great deal of effort has been directed to creating centralized or even decentralized EMR management systems to ease access to patient data. Interestingly, the problem with EMR data management is not just a global ecosystem issue, but also infects departments within individual healthcare organizations. For example, one such centralized effort targets collecting healthcare data from disparate clinical systems of a healthcare organization into a centralized location. In such an approach, the patient lacks easy access to the patient's data and healthcare stakeholders outside an individual healthcare organization lacks easy access to the patient's data.
A better approach would place the patient in a more central role in the management of the patient's own data. Still, migration toward a patient-centric system has been slow, although there has been some progress toward allowing patient's to conduct some level of healthcare interactions via mobile phones. For example, a virtual pharmacy can facilitate interaction with a patient through a mobile phone application. Although patient can access the virtual pharmacy, the virtual pharmacy remains the central point of communication among stakeholders with respect to the patient's pharmacy needs. Such an approach fails to provide guidance toward facilitating access to a patient's EMR data no matter the affiliation of the stakeholder.
From the perspective of a private practice, practices can distribute EMRs to mobile devices. In various known examples, one or more practices operate as a hub for EMR data among stakeholders. EMR information may be presented on a cell phone, but such approaches fail to appreciate the complexity that could be involved with healthcare transactions in a patient centric model, especially when multiple practices are involved.
One aspect of the complexity of managing healthcare transactions includes making payments with respect to healthcare services. For example, a known healthcare payment system collects a price list for one or more healthcare services offered by a provider and transmits the price list to a mobile device of the patient. Upon authorization by the patient, the healthcare payment system renders payment via one or more funding source accounts. Although the approach provides some flexibility to the patient, the healthcare payment system becomes another layer of complexity in the ecosystem, which further distances a patient from access to the patient's data.
In a somewhat similar approach, payment is authorized for medical services via a mobile device via an “H-Wallet”. Another approach provides an intermediary service that manages a user's request for payment of a healthcare bill. In both cases, the healthcare payment systems function as an intermediary; yet another layer of complexity.
Although the examples listed above seek to improve a user's experience with respect to the management of healthcare data via a mobile phone, they all introduce additional layers of complexity that further distance a patient from the patient's healthcare data. The approaches above fail to take into account possible shifts in the healthcare market where healthcare services become heavily commoditized or are provided as a retail service. In such a retail market environment, there will be little tolerance for numerous layers of complexity. Rather, the patient may have to take on a greater role with respect to being the central hub for the patient's healthcare data. Still, the patient may desire some form of healthcare custodian.
A healthcare data custodial ecosystem as described herein according to various embodiments that can be provided by one or more mobile carriers. In such scenarios the mobile carriers operates as a healthcare data custodian and can provide direct access to EMR data to the patient or other stakeholders without intermediaries or complexity. Thus, there remains a need to provide data custodial services via one or more mobile carriers.
Note that all publications identified herein are incorporated by reference to the same extent as if each individual publication or patent application were specifically and individually indicated to be incorporated by reference. Where a definition or use of a term in an incorporated reference is inconsistent or contrary to the definition of that term provided herein, the definition of that term provided herein applies and the definition of that term in the reference does not apply.